Vampire: The Masquerade® - Bloodlines™ 2

[arisen]

There was clearly some thought going into which pics to post first and which to hide at the bottom.

The gorilla cop at the end is like a chef's kiss.

[Demonic Fate]

This is their lead character artist



https://tr.pinterest.com/keikasai/chara ... ncept-art/

I don't get it. She has all this stuff saved on her pinterest yet the two main characters look nothing like what she likes. I would've been fine with them if the male one had long hair and a full beard and the female one looking like some topmodel

Because the artists don't get to choose what goes in the game. If the executive demands woke slop then the artist can either draw it or be fired. She chose to get a paycheck instead of a pink slip.

There's something weird going on with TCR.

On one side, they're based in the gayest town in England (which is some competition), and they've repeatedly made woke noises on social media.

On the other side, Phyre's default looks being androgynous (but still male/female, no pronouns as far as we know) seems to be literally the worst thing they've ever done. AFAIK, they haven't put a single gay or ***** character in their games, or shoehorned 'racism bad' messages in the plots. ****, their stories are set in 20th-century Britain and they feature entirely white, heterosexual casts; if they have any browns or gays, I couldn't find them in a quick search.

That would be a sheer miracle coming from a neutral or right-aligned developer (cue KCD2 whining). Coming from people that openly describe themselves as DEI, it's downright baffling.

I found this interview with their creative director about one of their older games, which touches a little bit on their political view of England in the '80s. I would like to hear your takes on it.

My best guess? This Pinchbeck guy is a Gen X 'live and let live' liberal type, who rolls his eyes and sighs when he sees that Netflix has made a gay black disabled king of England, but he has been molded by '80s/'90s culture so he cannot conceive of ever allying with anything "conservative" for any reason, because to him anything remotely right-wing is forever square and uncool and Thatcherite. In my experience, these types tend to eventually break from the contradiction and either withdraw from society or focus entirely on some pet cause that lets them avoid taking a side in the broader culture wars.

[Roguey]

AFAIK, they haven't put a single gay or ***** character in their games, or shoehorned 'racism bad' messages in the plots. ****, their stories are set in 20th-century Britain and they feature entirely white, heterosexual casts; if they have any browns or gays, I couldn't find them in a quick search.

In Still Wakes the Deep one of the workers on the oil rig is a big burly woman and the main character mutters "******* prick" when you come across his coworker's National Front poster.

[Jordy]

New update, showcasing some mortals. It's not offensively Obsidian-level bad.

► Show Spoiler

'Diversity is our Strength' the musical! Also, here's a 60 year old hooker.

[MrTwinkls]

New update, showcasing some mortals. It's not offensively Obsidian-level bad.

► Show Spoiler

I would prefer if they released some videos with animations to convey life and complex emotions. Without movement those characters are looking like some badly designed soulless plasticine husks.

[logincrash]

These NPCs look like they're made in the Sims 3 character creator. Same glassy eyes and plastic skin.

[Irenaeus]

These NPCs look like they're made in the Sims 3 character creator. Same glassy eyes and plastic skin.

It's a challenge to create a character as grubby as these in Sims 3. They remind me of the mutants you kill in Bioshock.

[Marcus]

[arisen]

Haven't seen a

of this degree in a long time. As usual, Germans deliver!

This **** is a violation of Geneva Convention.

[NotAI]

The character models look bad. Obsidian bad.

FYI, it costs about $750-$1000 per good quality model at market price at no rush ETA of 1 month.

3D scanned top quality asset costs $3000-7000 at no rush ETA of 1 week.

The previous version of the game looked better, IMO.

[Wretch]

From their latest update


Description: Masculine and feminine side-by-side renders in the robes you start the game wearing

I am on my phone, had to actually zoom in to see any differences.

That's the protag btw.

Tribal tattoo vampire.

[MrTwinkls]

► Show Spoiler

"Does your kind still feel protective over the young? Do you still feel at all?" 
Agent Baker is pragmatic and methodical. She leads the I.A.O. in its mission to investigate the Blankbody presence in Seattle. She doggedly follows up on any suspicious deaths or disappearances and re-examines historical events to achieve her goal: to understand the monsters that she hunts so their elimination can be absolute.
The agents under her command respect her and have given her a nickname, which she bears proudly: “Mother Hen.”

Honestly I am surprised it is not another bald Debra Wilson. At least this character despite her appearance and obvious virtue signaling has the potential to be interesting but I probably still expect too much from modern writers.

[Kain]

The ceiling of attractiveness is the attractiveness of the woman working on it.

And the woman working on it is probably a man pretending to be a woman.

This is their lead character artist



https://tr.pinterest.com/keikasai/chara ... ncept-art/

The art style just scream "FAGGGGGGGG!!!!!".

[rusty_shackleford]

https://www.esrb.org/ratings/40336/vamp ... odlines-2/

Dildo of consequence don't come lubed, does it?

[Vergil]

Has this turd the *** has been squatting out for years drop yet?

[Roguey]

Delayed to October because of course it was. But they actually let some journalists play it. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/vampi ... lay-again/

After playing through the prologue twice and getting to muck around with a bunch of end-game ability combos, the thing that's stuck with me the most is how powerful I felt, and how much the game delights in leaning into the vampire power fantasy.

Visceral combat in as they insisted:

Right away you've got supernatural strength, speed and agility; you can scramble up buildings in the blink of an eye, glide for long distances, and pull off air-dashes. Even better: you've got unlimited telekinesis. And you better believe the team has littered the game with detritus that can be weaponised.

Fights are a trip. After last year's big gameplay reveal, I was pretty critical of how it looked. As a viewer, it's easy to brush it all off as jerky and messy. When you're in control, though, it all comes together. That messiness becomes gleeful controlled chaos as you juggle bodies, rip out throats and use your vampiric powers to make mortals and vamps alike explode in a shower of blood. And that jerkiness reveals itself to be the snappy, rhythmic flow of battle, letting you effortlessly bounce between victims, chaining powers and kills for maximum carnage.

What's surprising is how often you can actually use your powers. See, they all have a blood cost. So Blood Curse (the aforementioned blood bomb power) costs three blood points. Which means you have to feed three times to recharge it. You might assume this means you can only use it sparingly, but that's not really the case. This is because you can perform combat feeds on weakened enemies, and thanks to the pace of the fights you can effectively chain these together and get up to full power again in seconds. The feeding is brisk, too, though you are vulnerable while you're chowing down.

Obligatory Disco namedrop:

The dialogue and relationship systems all elegantly reinforce the fact that Bloodlines 2 is an investigative kind of RPG—something it shares with my all-time fave, Disco Elysium. Imagine Raymond Chandler spliced with Anne Rice and you're getting it.

Clothes reactivity in:

Talk to a sex worker while looking rough and they'll tell you to go away. If you're well-dressed they might be more interested. But if you're wearing something a bit sexy, they might assume you're another sex worker and chase you off.

Should have used smaller zones:

I'm also not quite sold on the open world of Seattle yet. It looks great—condensed but exaggerated, and colourfully dark, like you're seeing the night through the eyes of a nocturnal predator—and I loved navigating it with my supernatural powers, but it also seemed a bit quiet. There were some hidden collectibles and light snacks, but the prologue didn't give me much of a chance to explore its potential opportunities, or understand why it's an open world.

Also vampire romance confirmed https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/vampi ... c-feeding/

"So there are some romantic options," creative director Alex Skidmore told me. "But vampire romance isn't the same as human romance. So we have—this is probably awful and I don't want to give this soundbite—a kind of romantic feeding."

Naturally I warned him that I was absolutely going to have to put this in a headline.

"So there are points with named vampires," he continued, "where if you have played your card rights, you can do a romantic feed."

[Irenaeus]

Talk to a sex worker while looking rough and they'll tell you

Gay.

[Stack of Turtles]

Visceral combat in as they insisted:

Right away you've got supernatural strength, speed and agility; you can scramble up buildings in the blink of an eye, glide for long distances, and pull off air-dashes. Even better: you've got unlimited telekinesis. And you better believe the team has littered the game with detritus that can be weaponised.

Fights are a trip. After last year's big gameplay reveal, I was pretty critical of how it looked. As a viewer, it's easy to brush it all off as jerky and messy. When you're in control, though, it all comes together. That messiness becomes gleeful controlled chaos as you juggle bodies, rip out throats and use your vampiric powers to make mortals and vamps alike explode in a shower of blood. And that jerkiness reveals itself to be the snappy, rhythmic flow of battle, letting you effortlessly bounce between victims, chaining powers and kills for maximum carnage.

I wasn't gonna play this **** anyway, but man, I hate combat like this.

[Irenaeus]

Visceral combat in as they insisted:

Right away you've got supernatural strength, speed and agility; you can scramble up buildings in the blink of an eye, glide for long distances, and pull off air-dashes. Even better: you've got unlimited telekinesis. And you better believe the team has littered the game with detritus that can be weaponised.

Fights are a trip. After last year's big gameplay reveal, I was pretty critical of how it looked. As a viewer, it's easy to brush it all off as jerky and messy. When you're in control, though, it all comes together. That messiness becomes gleeful controlled chaos as you juggle bodies, rip out throats and use your vampiric powers to make mortals and vamps alike explode in a shower of blood. And that jerkiness reveals itself to be the snappy, rhythmic flow of battle, letting you effortlessly bounce between victims, chaining powers and kills for maximum carnage.

I wasn't gonna play this **** anyway, but man, I hate combat like this.

Very ******-coded, as kids these days say.

[NezahualDoomer]

The game got delayed again:

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/vampi ... lay-again/

"The bad news is that we'll all have to wait a wee bit longer, as Bloodlines 2 will no longer be appearing during the first half of 2025. Instead, it's been pushed back again, and is now expected to launch this October. Another delay is disappointing, but releasing during the spookiest month of the year at least feels appropriate."

Good for me, that way I can play the original and then have footage of it to compare to the new one and rip it a new one if it's garbage and I know it will be garbage.

[arisen]

"The bad news is that we'll all have to wait a wee bit longer, as Bloodlines 2 will no longer be appearing during the first half of 2025.

Could've just said they need more time for rendering that 600lbs Toreador femme fatale gorilla important NPC romance option.

[Valter]

Gooooooooooooood I can't wait for this trainwreck. I finally know how Duke Nukem Forever people felt back in the day.

[J1M]

Place your bets. 2025 or 2026?

[rusty_shackleford]

Place your bets. 2025 or 2026?

Paradox has to be pretty ****** at this point but I think it's more of a cuckshed kind of anger and they can't actually force them to release the game like old publishers who would purposely sink deals that went past deadlines.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Place your bets. 2025 or 2026?

2025. Paradox clearly wants to wash their hands off this project because they know it’s a flop. Really don’t know why Paradox bought the WOD IP since by the looks it they didn’t make back the money they originally bought it for.

[CheesusCrust]

Place your bets. 2025 or 2026?

1. will be listed for 2026
2. "muuhhh sry we'll do it 2027"
3. repeat

either way it'll follow the same fate just like modern "RPGs" - the story unexpectedly cutting to an end midway because the budget was wasted on the feminazi's crew doordash orders, leading to a short discovery of cut content weighing more than the game itself and so on. oh and "u guys r mean bcuz Baldur's Gate 3 gave you unrealistic expectations" or **** like that later

also that 5e Brujah clan description

[CheesusCrust]

Place your bets. 2025 or 2026?

1. will be listed for 2026
2. "muuhhh sry we'll do it 2027"
3. repeat

either way it'll follow the same fate just like modern "RPGs" - the story unexpectedly cutting to an end midway because the budget was wasted on the feminazi's crew doordash orders, leading to a short discovery of cut content weighing more than the game itself and so on. oh and "u guys r mean bcuz Baldur's Gate 3 gave you unrealistic expectations" or **** like that later

also that 5e Brujah clan description

lmao

[Tweed]

Let's pray that this is a failure along with EU5 and that Paradox is finally forced to close.

[Trickster]

This game smells like a big scam

► Show Spoiler

just like all games from Paradox

[J1M]

It has been so long I can't even remember if I have bought this or not.